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Sunday, June 10, 2012

This week's garden recipes: fennel slaw and peach sorbet

One of the best things about growing edible things is, well, eating them.  Since I'm a glutton, I really get into the eating part of edible gardening (maybe I should rename this blog Gluttonous Gardening).  Our summer harvest season is just getting started here in SoCal, and we're already feasting.  Here are my two favorite recipes from the past week of harvesting and cooking (to respect copyright, I'm including links rather than the whole recipe):

  • Fennel Slaw with Mint Vinaigrette: I'm growing fennel for the first time ever this year, so when I realized the bulbs were fat and ready, I had no idea what to do with them. A little Googling turned up this recipe, which turned out wonderful!  Even my "it's only worth eating if it comes from the drive-thru" husband and my "it's only worth eating if it has enough sugar to make an elephant diabetic" son liked it.  Yes, for real: my 13-year-old liked a fennel salad.  It really was delicious, especially after it had sat in the fridge for about a day.  The extra time mellowed the flavors a bit.
  • Peach sorbet: Our peach tree is loaded this year, so I'll be having fun finding stuff to do with peaches (it's a tough job, but someone has to do it).  We bought an old ice cream freezer at a yard sale a few years ago and (finally) tried it out.  Neither of us has ever made ice cream before, but with a little pampering of the ancient ice cream maker, we succeeded in making the most wonderful sorbet I've ever eaten.  This is a very simple recipe from the Food Network - basically peaches and sugar.  The result tasted like a creamy, frozen version of a fresh peach.  Absolutely divine. 
Lest anyone out there think I'm a health nut, I've also had fun cooking up green beans with lots of bacon.  Once I've perfected my beans-to-grease ratio, I'll post a recipe here.